Wednesday, April 11, 2007

Lessons

The theologian Walter Wink has identified a particularly dominant narrativefound around the world. It goes something like this: goodies are oppressed bybaddies. Along comes the hero, and through threat or force, liberates theinnocent and overcomes the evil doer.

So that'll be the most common out of the seven types of plot, then.

2) From a great piece in the Washington Post (tips to OHB) about an experiment it conducted to see whether aural beauty could be discerned by weekday commuters (generally, they didn't):

When Picarello was growing up in New York, he studied violin seriously,intending to be a concert musician. But he gave it up at 18, when he decidedhe'd never be good enough to make it pay. Life does that to you sometimes.Sometimes, you have to do the prudent thing. So he went into another line ofwork. He's a supervisor at the U.S. Postal Service. Doesn't play the violinmuch, anymore.

When he left, Picarello says, "I humbly threw in $5." It was humble: You canactually see that on the video. Picarello walks up, barely looking at Bell, andtosses in the money. Then, as if embarrassed, he quickly walks away from the manhe once wanted to be.

Does he have regrets about how things worked out?

The postal supervisor considers this. "No. If you love somethingbut choose not to do it professionally, it's not a waste. Because, you know, you still have it. You have it forever."

There's a lesson in there somewhere. Just don't really or fully want to acknowledge it.